Wireless communication networks, especially cellular wireless communication networks, are used to provide wireless communication between terminal equipments, so-called user equipments. The information communicated between the user equipments may comprise for example speech data, video data, audio data or any other kind of data up- and downloaded for example between the user equipment and the Internet. Furthermore, the user equipments may comprise for example so-called machine type communication (MTC) devices communicating wirelessly data between each other. For example, a temperature sensor may communicate via the wireless communication network a temperature information to a heating system of a building. The wireless communication network may comprise for example a communication network according to standards like UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) or LTE (long term evolution) of the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).
When for example a 3GPP device or user equipment is in idle mode, it needs to continuously perform a few tasks. The device or user equipment needs to listen to a broadcasting channel (PCCH) for system information, listen to a potential page on a paging channel (PCCH), and listen to a synchronization channel (SCH). Furthermore, the user equipment may also need to measure the signal strength of radio frequency signals of neighboring cells in order to perform a cell reselection. Furthermore, the user equipment may need to send location update to the wireless communication network. This may happen if the user equipment enters a new tracking area (TA) or based on timer values. The location update is needed for the wireless communication network to be able to page the user equipment for an incoming call.
For reducing power consumption, the user equipment may enter an idle mode in which the user equipment may use a maximum discontinued reception (DRX) scheme with the longest periodicity for the above-mentioned tasks. The power consumption in the idle mode may limit the maximum standby time of the user equipment which may be for example a few days or a few weeks, with usually used batteries.
Therefore, there is a need for further lowering power consumption of the user equipment for achieving longer standby times.